Augusta couple sues doctor, hospital over flushed fetus

Wednesday

Mar 13, 2019 at 3:43 PMMar 13, 2019 at 8:19 PM

An Augusta couple is suing a local physician and University Hospital after a miscarriage that resulted in the fetus being flushed.

An Augusta couple is suing a local doctor and University Hospital for malpractice and emotional distress after the wife miscarried at the hospital and the fetus was then flushed down a toilet last year and later turned up in equipment at Augusta's wastewater treatment plant.

Lakeya and Zaquel Jones are seeking compensation for issues such as "profound and severe emotional distress" and loss as well as $2 million in punitive damages in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Richmond County State Court. In addition to University, the couple is suing Dr. Ziad Ahmadie and Augusta Physicians Group.

According to the lawsuit, Lakeya Jones was 16 weeks pregnant last year when she began having abdominal pains and drove herself to University's Emergency Department around 6 p.m. on May 4. She told the staff she was pregnant but waited more than two hours. After telling the staff her contractions were five minutes apart, she also became sick and started vomiting. She was finally put in an exam room around 9 p.m. and was seen by Ahmadie, who ordered an ultrasound, which confirmed her pregnancy. The fetus was around 10 centimeters, about four inches long, and had a heart rate of over 150 beats per minute, according to the suit.

Jones claims in the lawsuit Ahmadie was disrespectful and treated her as if she were faking her symptoms. At one point, the lawsuit said, he handed her discharge paperwork and told her to get dressed and leave. Jones claims she told the doctor she was still in "excruciating pain" but that he told her to leave.

When she tried to use the restroom, she couldn't open the door on her own and had to be helped inside. There she eventually delivered into the toilet and immediately yelled, "I've lost my baby," according to the suit.

A nurse and Ahmadie came into the restroom and saw blood on the floor, on the toilet and on Jones, according to the suit. Ahmadie ordered her back on the exam table and "bleeding, crying, and hysterical" Jones left the restroom and had to be helped back onto the table. Despite them seeing there was "material" in the toilet, either Ahmadie or a nurse "promptly and intentionally flushed the toilet" and the fetus, according to the lawsuit.

Ahmadie then told Jones she had a miscarriage and “everything went down the drain,” according to the lawsuit, while also telling the nurses it "was not necessary to retrieve the fetus.”

Three days after the incident, workers at Augusta wastewater treatment plant found the fetus stuck in some equipment and notified the Richmond County Sheriff's Office, which began an investigation. A relative of the family heard about it and contacted them, and Lakeya Jones approached the sheriff's office and offered a DNA sample, which confirmed the fetus was hers, according to her attorney, Harry Revell.

The lawsuit claims Ahmadie or the nurse committed the offense of "abandonment of a dead body" and that University violated a state requirement and its own policy that the fetus be provided for proper disposal after a miscarriage.

University had not seen the lawsuit early Wednesday but has "spent a great deal of time" investigating the incident, spokeswoman Rebecca Sylvester said. "We can say that no one intentionally flushed a fetus down the toilet. We will stay engaged and let the case play out." Ahmadie was not working in the ED or in Pediatrics on Wednesday at University and a staff member who answered the phone said he does not have an office.

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